


Still Running From All My Mistakes (Cut to the Fallout)

by Silent-Wordsmith (Shatteredsand)



Series: Don't Dream Too Deep [6]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Actual Gags, Alternate Universe: Canon Divergence, Angst, BDSM, Codependency, Denial, Eliza Danvers' A+ Parenting, Emotional Infidelity, F/F, Guilt, It's Not Incest If One of Them's an Alien, Jealousy, Kara is Still Cat's Assistant, Lucy Never Left Catco, Makeshift Gags, Mentions of Alcohol Abuse, Mon-El As He Could and Should Have Been, Possibly more tags as I go, Pseudo-Incest, Repression, Rough Sex, Sister-Sister Relationship, possible rating change later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2018-12-06 16:52:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11604828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shatteredsand/pseuds/Silent-Wordsmith
Summary: Cut to the fallout, when the silence stole our words. I was still fighting for all I thought you deserved…AKA: Intro the Rival Love Interests!





	1. I've Done This Before (Not Like This)

**Author's Note:**

> Using the Kara Danvers/Mon-El tag actually, physically pained me. Even knowing that this is the Mon-El he could have been, rather than the random CW fuck-boi we got…

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I’ve done this before, but not like this. Not like this. There’s something I want; I take all the right wrongs. Now I’m gonna stay in my zone. I’m tired of picking that bone, and I can’t be bothered to fight it no more." ~~Zayn, "BeFour"

They don’t talk about it. In the wake of Myriad, in the wake of how the world _almost_ ended.

They don’t talk about the weeks Alex spent locked inside the DEO. They don’t talk about the actions her body took under orders from someone else’s mind, the damage Alex’s puppet-string muscles had dealt to the one person she’s spent her entire life protecting, the cruel things Non had spoken through her mouth while wielding the only thing on this planet that could hurt Kara, the way Kara—with her guilty eyes—had to declare that she wouldn’t kill her _sister_ , the way Alex had wrested control back for just long enough for the fight to be over and Kara to fly away.

They don’t talk about Alex’s judicious misappropriation of government property to fly an unsanctioned rescue mission into space. They don’t talk about the fact that said mission could have, really should have been, a suicide mission. They don’t talk about the fact that should have been a concerning action. They being Alex and J’onn, the only ones who actually know that Alex had been Section Eight’d . And what that meant. What that could have meant. What that almost was. What that might come to be, should the right time come to pass—a time when Supergirl doesn’t need Alex anymore; a time when what Alex gives to National City and Supergirl is no longer an equal match to what Alex has taken for herself at the cost of heroism, at the cost of a hero.

They don’t talk about what had happened before either. The reason that Alex had been held. What she’d done, what she was going to do.

Any of it, neither part nor parcel.

In the aftermath of it all, they don’t talk about it.

There isn’t time. No sooner than the officially unofficial members of Team Supergirl gather at Kara’s for celebratory pizza and Pictionary, there’s some kind of _something_ hurtling through the night sky. Because of course there is. No rest for the wicked, after all. Nor the righteous. Nor the weary.

And Alex? Alex is starting to maybe be ready to admit that she is _weary_.

Kara and J’onn take off through the air, and Alex abandons James and Winn in Kara’s apartment. She has Vasquez on the line before she hits the first set of stairs. She wants satellite monitoring on the object, she wants a trajectory, she wants to know what the fuck it is. Preferably, before whatever it is wreaks havoc on the city and/or hurts Kara.

OooO

The ship is Kryptonian. The man is, presumably, Kryptonian. This is so much worse than James with his inside track with Superman.

This is a member of Kara’s actual _species_ whom she isn’t directly related to. This is Kara’s chance at a real life—one with love and, maybe, children and everything a normal girl could have that Kara always knew she never could—and Alex wants that for her. She _does_.

She just thought she would have more time in between the disaster that had occurred—that Alex had participated in, had _created_ —before she had to look Kara’s future in his damnably handsome sleeping face. But here she is, still raw and bleeding from the betrayal of her promise to keep Kara safe, and looking at some genetically engineered model of Kryptonian excellence.

She doesn’t have much time to ponder it, though, because then Kara and J’onn are coming in for an update that Alex can’t actually really give them because of the alien’s stupid, impenetrable skin. And Kara is so excited, so thrilled. Alex wants to be excited for her, _is_ , a little, because Kara, out of all the beings on this planet, is the one who least deserves to feel all alone. But he still hasn’t woken up—Kara said that she’d awoken the moment Clark had ripped open her pod, Martha had once smiled so fondly when she told of finding a spaceship in her corn field and little Clark’s bright blue eyes blinking innocently at her—and Alex doesn’t know why, and she doesn’t know how to help him without whipping out a chunk of toxic rock that’s more likely to do harm than good.

Cat Grant texts, and Kara goes a’running. An aching sense of normality slams into Alex as she watches Kara fly off to mind the whims of National City’s most powerful woman; or, well, the most powerful human, at least. This is normal. This good.

Alex isn’t sure if it’s forgiveness, because Alex is pretty sure that Kara doesn’t even think she needs to be forgiven for anything, but it’s a return to routine. Alex needs that, right now. Alex needs a reminder that Kara thinks things are okay with them—that Kara needs things to be okay between them—so she can pretend to be okay with things being okay with them.

She thinks it might be easier if Kara could get angry with her. Yell at her, lash out, _hurt_ her. At least, then, Alex would know that Kara isn’t still blaming herself for Alex’s stupid, selfish actions. But all she can do is this, get back into the routine, the usual. Be normal.

For Kara.

OooO

Kara comes flying in with Superman—with Clark, with _Kal-El_ —and Alex doesn’t know how she feels about that. She doesn’t know, until J’onn is turning to her and asking if she knew, if Kara had told her— _asked_ her?—about bringing him into the base of their top-secret government facility.

“No.” Alex says, hears how the hurt—not that Kara had brought him, but that she hadn’t said anything, at _not knowing_ something before the rest of the DEO when Alex had always known what Kara is going to do before the rest of them—almost slips into her tone, and moderates her response. “Is that a problem?”

There’s no hostility in it. There could be, for the decision J’onn had made on her behalf, for trapping her away while things with Non got worse and the end of everything almost came to pass, but there isn’t. Because J’onn is still her superior officer, still her _commanding_ officer, still the father figure who stood up and took it upon himself to help fill some part of the aching absence left by her father’s death/disappearance, and she still respects him so damn much. That doesn’t go away just because, deep down in a place she will never let herself go when it comes to those she considers family, she is so _angry_ with him for taking away the choice. Even if it was, in hindsight, the wrong one. Or, at least, premature one.

“Alex!” Clark says, immediately moving to wrap his arms around her in a hug. Alex forces a smile, returns the hug, and wonders when the last time he had hugged Kara was. Had he even bothered, after they’d saved the _Venture_? She knows he hadn’t called after Myriad—let alone come to _see_ his cousin who had saved him as well when she nearly died to save the entire planet; let alone wrapped Kara up in arms strong enough to hug her tight enough to really _feel_ , strong enough to let her hug back as _forcefully_ as she wanted, _needed_ , to—because Kara is always a complex mix of elated and dejected after Kal-El communicates with her in some way more direct than instant messenger.

Broiling anger in the pulsing beating of her heart, in the marrow of her bones, because she knows Kara doesn’t even have Clark’s _phone number_ , has no way to contact the last member of her race who has never attacked her other than instant fucking messenger.

But she forces a smile, and she hugs him back. And when he says it’s good to see her, like they have ever really known each in any way other than in passing and reference through Kara or her parents, Alex says “you, too” like she means it.

She doesn’t hate Clark. She could never hate someone that Kara loved—Cat Grant and her frankly ridiculous treatment of what could only be the world’s most perfect assistant, the few occasional absences aside, and most genuinely kind person is nearly as close as Alex can get, and even that never quite reaches because Cat had been _callous_ but also _helpful_ ; Kal-El has only ever been _carelessly selfish_ , and that puts him a category all his own—but she has no love for the man.

She doesn’t look at him and see a hero; she sees a man who had tossed aside the most precious thing in the universe. He’d done it for all the right reasons, in theory, but that theory left no room for the lack of visits, of guidance, of pure, simple _contact_ that he had abandoned as surely as he had abandoned his cousin “for the best”.

She still can’t hate him, for all the love Kara has in her too big heart for him, but she comes closer to it with him than for Cat. Closer than she even manages for Maxwell Lord. Lord, for all his horrific transgressions against Kara and humanity, for all his sociopathic tendencies, isn’t supposed to be _family_.

Hell, even Astra and Non were better to Kara, at the end of it all, than Kal-El had ever managed to be. They, at least, weren’t ashamed to admit they were family at all. Kara and Non had stood side-by-side in the water-color weak dawn’s light to see Astra off into the hereafter, had observed her passage as family, even as they were enemies. And, when Non could have pressed the advantage, could have convinced or coerced or provoked Kara—infected with Red Kryptonite and not herself—into joining their cause, he had stayed his hand, stayed the hands of Astra’s army, to fully and faithfully complete the rituals that had sent Astra home to Rao, the way Kara—infected and out of her mind—still had, spending the time giving into Alex’s wants rather than blasphemy.

More honor than shame in them, these enemies of earth. Alex isn’t sure the same could be said for Clark.

Or, maybe, “ashamed” isn’t the right word. Maybe “scared” is better suited. Because Kal-El, because _Clark_ , wants so completely to believe that he is human, despite his powers. He doesn’t want to be an alien, can’t quite acknowledge that he _is_.

Not like Kara. Kara, who plays the role so well, but knows that it has never been _hers_. Not like Kara, who mimes clumsiness to distract from preternatural grace. Not like Kara, who breaks things in absentmindedness or irritation. Not like Kara, who tries so hard to blend in, because she knows—deep down in the very fiber of _herself_ , that she is not a part of the species who surround her.

Kara is very good at playing human.

Kal-El is mediocre at best at playing Kryptonian.

It’s something that only applies when he puts on the suit, when he fashions himself Earth’s Greatest— _second_ greatest, in Alex’s very well-informed opinion—Hero. Clark is as Kryptonian as Kara is human; only when in disguise.

And Alex can _almost_ hate him for it. For that tantalizing glimpse of connection he gives to Kara by his mere existence, but never manages to follow through on.

“Kara told me Jeremiah might be alive, and you know how much your father means a lot to me.”  That, that Alex does know. She had seen Clark—as Clark, never as Superman, never as Kal-El—in her youth, as a _family friend_. She knows that Clark has loved her father as the uncle he never had, though he did have an uncle, one he never knew and would never know because he never spoke to his cousin about their family or Krypton or all the things she could share with him—wants _so desperately_ to share with him—if only he would _ask_. “So, if there’s anything I can do.”

Alex nods, tight lipped forced-smile, and says thank you. But she knows, she’ll not be the one to call him in, if they find her father. This is a family affair, and Clark—Kal-El—has made it a point to separate himself from that family in nearly all ways. If Kara hadn’t put on the sigil of her House—and it is _her_ House, though everyone is quick to give its ownership to Kal-El, because _she_ is the eldest, _she_ is the firstborn, no matter how the rest of the world perceives them—if Kara hadn’t slipped in her interview with Cat, she doubts the man in front of her would ever had claimed the relationship publically at all.

After all, Clark Kent doesn’t have any cousins. Neither does Kara Danvers. And Superman has been known as The Last Son of Krypton for over a decade, over the decade that Kara had been known to him. And she knows, she does, that part of that was to protect Kara, to keep her safe. But she made her debut, and she wore the sigil, and she made herself known, and still.

The Man of Steel had been _silent_.

Even after Kara had revealed them to be cousins, Superman had said nothing of his cousin—has said nothing—to anyone. He’s dating the foremost Superman expert and reporter, but no statement had been released. The Daily Planet had not printed an interview with its darling hero where he could discuss his cousin and her brilliant achievements. Clark had been silent as the grave, as silent as the graves of their dead ancestors—their dead _race_ —and Kara had chosen not to see the slight in it.

Alex chose, rather deliberately, not to ignore it.

Then J’onn and Clark are exchanging tension filled greeting of their own and heading off to see the patient, and Kara is bounding over to Alex’s side. Alex doesn’t know what’s up between her pseudo-cousin and her boss/space dad, but she does know that she and Kara have been play-acting at normal for a bit now. A bit long enough for Alex to feel like teasing Kara about Kal-El might be the best option to stop this from becoming an awkward silence filled with far too many things left unsaid.

“Your cousin smells terrific.”

“Enough.” Kara huffs, rolling her eyes.

But.

But.

But, it’s not quite right. The inflection is off, the sentiment is off. It feels far too honest and serious a reprimand to fit the teasing Alex had hoped to bring them back to. It feels…

_Hurt_.

She’s misstepped again. Done the wrong things again. A lifetime spent protecting Kara from all the pains she could, and, now, Alex cannot seem to stop _causing_ her pain.

She wants to backtrack, to tell Kara is the most beautiful creature she’s ever seen, the most delightful, the _best_ , period. That her dreams are still haunted by the sights and sounds and smells of their one, disastrous night together. That Clark does smell good, but only because he smells a little like Kara. A little less, a little something else, something more and less familiar, something closer to Earth than Kara at her base level. But…

 But that would do more harm than good, would only bring back the heavy shadow of guilt Kara had clung to in the immediate aftermath. The guilt that is Alex’s alone to don.

So she brushes it aside, like it doesn’t have any more weight than the teasing exchange was meant to, and follows after J’onn and Clark.

OooO

Clark stares at the comatose body in the bed, but Alex doesn’t think he’s really seeing him. Too busying asking questions, asking if Kara has does enough to be sure he is what he appears to be. Alex bristles, but says nothing. That isn’t her place. If it ever had been, it certainly wasn’t now. Not after.

(Kara may not have done an x-ray to confirm lack of cybernetics, but _Alex_ certainly had)

J’onn comes in to redirect attention, and, oh, Clark still thinks he has all the answers. Alex wants to take Kara and shake her. She wants to remind her favorite alien that long before she was the perfect assistant, she was well on her way to being the youngest member of the Science Guild Krypton had ever inducted and she should _know_ this without Clark having to spell it out.

But the sciences of this world hold no appeal to her foster sister, the constant need to convert and rework from the units she’d learned as a child and knew as surely as Alex knew the metric system into something human too taxing on an already nigh-constantly overstimulated brain. Especially not for advances that, to her, were so primitive as to hardly be considered advances at all.

Kara’s species had mastered interstellar travel as public transit before Earth had even had the telephone; one could hardly blame her for not rushing to “invent” the next wave of iPhones.

But, when Kal-El steps forward to investigate, J’onn is quick to try and shut him down. Alex is careful not to make any of her joy apparent—J’onn may be able to psychically pick up on it, but Clark, and more importantly Kara, can’t—but it’s drowned out quickly when Kara rushes to include her cousin. Alex can’t fault her for it, can’t say anything against it. It’s a sound plan, tactically, and Kal-El for all his painful distance has never hurt Kara the way Alex had. So, really, what leg does she have to stand on, if he wants to help?

Even if it is twelve years later than when it would have mattered most.

OooO

In researching the _Venture_ , Alex finds the name she least wants anywhere near Kara. She growls low in her throat, various members on her science team scattering in vague and warranted terror, as she looks at the passenger list for the shuttle ride, and the one, solidary name that had booked a ticket and not taken a seat.

_Lena Luthor._

Alex knows about the Luthors. She knows about Lionel and his murky, for lack of concrete evidence, business dealings. She knows about Lex and his madness that had cost hundreds of people their lives and thousands their families and peace of mind.

Alex knows about the Luthors, and the last thing she wants is one of them in National City, or even in the tri-state area. The last thing she wants is a Luthor close to Supergirl, to _Kara_.

But the name is a lead, is something that must be followed through on. So, she calls Kara, and she tells her what she knows, and when Kara brings up Clark again, Alex swallows down the need to scream “Please, let the DEO handle it; this is our jobs” just long enough for Kara to hang-up on her. Presumably, to go running to Clark—to Kal-El.

To going running to someone who has never been there for her, but who also had never seen her drugged out and beyond self-control and taken advantage to sate the worst kind of wanting.

In her empty lab, with no one to see her but security likely too frightened of her to ever speak of what they see on the monitors to see her, Alex lets her head fall forward onto her desk, fists clenched white-knuckle tight and _screams_.

It’s wordless. It is pain, and rage, and helplessness.

OooO

“What’s on your mind, Agent Danvers.” J’onn asks, like he doesn’t know.

Alex isn’t sure why she’s bringing it up. She knows they have kryptonite for a reason. She knows that, prior to Kara’s removal of Fort Rozz, there had been an unknown number of rogue and criminal Kryptonians and that securing and using the only substance on Earth that had any effect on them had been the most practical decision to make.

But.

Those Kryptonians are gone. Lost in space where Kara left them or convinced enough that world domination was a bad plan to go into hiding, the way Kara had for her first twelve years on the planet. The only people left to use kryptonite on are the last children of the House of El. Alex feels substantially less comfort with that fact.

Winn interrupts, because that seems to be Winn’s specialty, and after a few minutes of babble that Alex really could have done without, he gets to the point: Lena Luthor wasn’t the perpetrator; she’s the target.

Fuck.

While the number of people who want to kill a Luthor—any Luthor, any will do—very few would be willing to down an entire subatmospheric vessel and all the innocent lives aboard to do it. Even fewer have the means to tamper with a fucking _Luthorcorp_ oscillator.

_Fuck_.

OooO

 

The bombs go off, and Alex isn’t surprised. The bombs go off and Kara disappears  into Supergirl, and Alex has an assassin to find. Just your normal, everyday Tuesday. He’s smart; she’ll give him that, when she sees him striding purposely through the crowd in a police uniform. Luthor plays right into his hands, as well, face and voice full of relief and concern at the sight of his rookie blues.

And then the gun’s up, and Alex isn’t looking at Luthor’s face anymore. She’s got a job to do, an assailant to disarm and arrest, and an alien foster sister to get as far away from anyone surnamed Luthor.

Corban is good. Alex is better. A fact that he seems to grasp just in time to roll back into reach of a gun, and promptly take her hostage with it. Bastard.

Huh. Bleeding out, dying bastard. Well then.

It might have saved her life—not that Alex couldn’t have figured out a way to get out of his hold long enough for Kara to super-smack him into the pavement—but Alex can’t help wishing that Lena Luthor was a poorer shot. Nothing about the knowledge that a Luthor knows how to use a deadly weapon, and use it well, sits right with Alex. Not with Kara possibly in the line of fire.

OooO

Welcoming Winn into the DEO officially feels good. Repeated exposure to the man had left Alex with the impression of what having a younger sibling was _supposed_ to feel like. A gruff sense of affection and the deep, persistent sentiment that she would find herself more than willing to bloody her hands in his name. She shows him this by rolling her eyes and sharing a look with J’onn she knows he would understand even without telepathy.

She leaves Kara alone with Clark, wondering if she should. Wondering if she should step in, remind Kara not to get too attached. Clark is visiting; he won’t be here long. And, once again, just like always, it will be Alex who has to pick up the pieces of Kara he leaves scattered when he flies off to continue pretending that he doesn’t even have a cousin.

Alex isn’t sure if she trusts herself to do it this time.


	2. Defeated Pride (Finally Got the Chance to Let Go)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I can’t decide if I should let the words spill out at a time like this. Keep it inside and swallow whatever it is that keeps you warm. Hold it back, for what’s to come might crush you.” ~~Balance and Composure, "More to Me"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized, about 3/4ths of the way through this chapter that, since I removed the Kara/J’onn’s Red K fight and, subsequently, J’onn/Alex’s treason charges and condemnation to Cadmus, there’s no way that Kara/Alex/J’onn have any idea that Jeremiah is both alive and a Cadmus captive. Whoops. Let’s just say that J’onn saw it in the minds of Gen. Lane or one of Lane’s subordinates. Sorry for the plot hole.

Winn, in his new and official position as a DEO tactical analyst, makes it a point to call J’onn out on being….less than happy about Kal-El’s continued presence on the scenes of Supergirl activity. To be completely honest, Alex isn’t exactly thrilled herself, but she has a role to play, a place in this grand scheme, and that role is Kara’s big sister and J’onn’s beloved but stubborn pseudo-daughter. And that, that means that Alex has to call J’onn out as surely as Winn does, least the role—the careful alignment of who Agent Danvers _is_ —begin to crumble and collapse. Least she end up back in that room with the _good doctor_ and not be let _out_. 

“You promised Kara that you’d be nicer, when her cousin was around.”

“I said I would try.” J’onn grumbles, and Alex can relate, even if she can’t show that similarity of feeling without fear of being sent back to Section 8’s whitewashed walls and sanitized quarters for another few weeks—months? She’s not even sure how long they had held her until Myriad had forced them to finally, finally let her go free—so she keeps playing her designated role. She keeps playing the ribbing older sister and irking oldest sibling to J’onn’s exhausted Space Dad.

Winn chimes in with an out of place Star Wars quote—really, within an agency that deals with aliens every day, quotes from sci-fi movies are horrifically out of place—and J’onn and Alex rolls their eyes in sync.

“He’ll be leaving town soon, I’m sure.” Alex says, ever so careful not to allow even a hint of bitterness into her tone. Clark _always_ leaves. He always has a good reason to, sure, but that doesn’t stop the inevitable heartbreak left behind in his wake. It doesn’t stop Alex from having to carefully put the pieces of Kara back together again when her only living relative turns his back on her, again, for the _greater_ _good_. “Until then…”

Kara’s laughter—Kara’s laughter with Kal-El—interrupts, and Alex doesn’t hate it. Could never begrudge her alien anything that made her so happy. But she knows, even if Kara doesn’t seem to, that such happiness is temporary. Kal-El, Clark, is content to play side-kick right now. And Alex has no doubt of his intentions; he surely has missed his cousin. But.

And there’s always a “but” where Kal-El, where Clark, is involved.

But he’ll be on his way back to Metropolis soon. But he’ll leave Kara again as surely has he had the first time he’d met the undeniable truth that he’s not human with abilities but an alien species completely separate from human beings in their entirety. But he doesn’t miss Kara the way Kara misses him; he didn’t know her until he was grown and she was still small, but she’s known him since his wore diapers and needed her to help him with the simplest of tasks. A dichotomy of their fractioned ages that makes perfect sense, but can’t stop hurting Kara while Kal is completely ignorant to its existence.

“I’ll be in the armory; shooting at something.” J’onn grumbles.

Alex lets him go. She doesn’t know how to fix the wrongs between the DEO and Superman, between Superman and Supergirl, between Alex Danvers and…everything.

OooO

Kara’s been offline for too long; Alex is suiting up with a team of agents to provide support for Kara against the Kigori, when the girl of steel herself deigns to make an appearance with her cousin. The rogue alien has been detained by _Team Krypton_ , apparently. Alex tries to keep the bubbling sense of jealously and the general feeling of being superseded by the super-family member who hadn’t _been_ _there_ for Kara when she needed family most but was more like Kara than Alex could ever hope to be, at bay. After all, Kal-El, Clark, may not have been there for her, not for years, but he also hadn’t fucked Kara and let himself be fucked by Kara in a moment of mind-altering radiation and poor decision-making.

Kal-El, for all his numerous faults, is, at the very least, _not_ Kara’s rapist.

J’onn jumps into Kara’s hyper-excited spiel, sparring Alex the duty of having to do so. Alex is grateful. She doesn’t know how to come down on Kara, the way she always has, the way a big sister should, in the aftermath of all the things they’re not talking about now.

And then, the lights flicker, power down, and Winn has a report about the holding area.

This is, apparently, something the Kryptonian survivor has been doing since last night, and no one saw fit to inform Alex. Alex, the person at the DEO most aware of Kryptonians other than the actual Kryptonian amongst them. Even more so than the _other_ Kryptonian currently visiting them. It irks her, but there’s nothing she can say. Her credibility has certainly felt her “leave of absence”, given the, she’s sure, complete lack of explanation. 

Section 8 qualifies as medical information, and, as such, is privileged information that only Alex and her doctor have access to, even J’onn would only have received progress reports, nothing with detail. But her absence had surely been noted. And, the last anyone had seen of her, other than J’onn and Dr. Heller, she had been of able body. Her abrupt disappearance for _weeks_ is bound to have cast uncertainty on her position within the DEO’s hierarchy.

And, now, Winn and J’onn and Clark are talking about the man who fell from the skies, and Alex’s attempts at scientific distance are immediately shunted by Superman and J’onn’s pissing contest.

She doesn’t let the feeling of inadequacy, of yet again not measuring up, of not being enough, show. But she feels it. She feels it when Clark makes it a point to leave diplomatically before J’onn can all but order him from the premises. She feels it when Kara comes at J’onn for not being as kind as he said he would try to be.

And it stabs into her, somewhere in the soft parts that aren’t a mortal wound but still hurts like hell, when Kara says that Clark—that _Kal-El_ —is coming to sister night.

“The more the merrier.” Alex puffs out, trying to staunch the internal bleeding of this, yet another aspect of her life—of _Kara’s_ life—that Kal-El has been implicitly and explicitly invited to join by mere merit of genetics, despite his never really being there for Kara in her dozen years on Earth while Alex bent over backwards and contorted into pretzels for her alien foster sister.

It’s not fair. It isn’t, but to protest would be to take away something from Kara, something that she needs to feel _normal_ —not to feel _human_ , because there’s nothing on this good green earth that could ever do that—and Alex would never take that away from her. Kara lives her live the way Eliza and Jeremiah had demanded she do, to keep her out of the way and safe; superhero alter-egos not even a factor at the time that the decision was made. There is so little of who Kara really is in who she is forced to pretend to be; Alex could never even imagine taking away an outlet of her true self, not even for a moment.

No matter how much it hurts.

OooO

Honestly, Alex should have known better than to bring up a selection of wines for sisters-plus-cousin night, but there she was, asking if Clark preferred red or wine and being shut down. Because, of course, alcohol doesn’t affect Kryptonians, and, of course, Clark still doesn’t drink. Because he’s this big, pious monument to the Great American Way, despite, you know, not actually being American. Or, maybe, by being the height of American, this undocumented immigrant from another world who’s never known any life but the one he was raised with in Smallville, Kansas.

Clark—Kal-El—walks in, and the first thing he does is ask Alex to leave. She acquiesces, forced smile and play-pretend hospitality, but it sinks in like a barb. Like a reminder:

I’m her _real_ family; I’m the one who is important. I’m the one who’d never, ever do what you did, no matter the circumstances. You’re a _monster_ , and I don’t feel comfortable speaking freely in front of you. I know what you did, Kara told me, and I can’t abide leaving my cousin under your care anymore; not knowing that you’d take any opportunity, no matter how wrong, to use her for your own benefit. Go away, Alex Danvers, this is a conversation for your betters, and we **_are_** your betters, and you have no place being here in the home of the woman you _raped_.

Alex takes the bottle with her when she goes.

Neither hero deigns to inform her of their departure when they take off to save the day without her.

(they’d be so much better off without her…)

OooO

Superman—Clark, Kal-El—flies Kara back to the DEO. Back to the DEO where Alex has been waiting, has had to go after the reports of Supergirl, and Superman, on the scene because she didn’t know, because Kara took Kal-El but didn’t think to take her.

Alex wasn’t there. Kara got hurt, and Alex wasn’t there. She should have _been there_.

It aches. The lack of being there, the lack of Kara’s thought to think to bring her along. But Alex knows she deserves it, deserves to be left behind. She isn’t _good_ for Kara, however hard she’s tried to be. She always ends up bringing more weight to bear upon the girl with a planet and a half already precariously balanced on her shoulders.

And then, of course, J’onn and Clark get into yet another pissing match. Alex can understand it, support it even, from Clark’s point of view—the lost shipment had almost killed Kara, and there’s nothing in Alex’s mind that that could ever make that an acceptable loss—but there were other factors. And destroying all the kryptonite within the DEO does not immediately negate the fact that other sources may have found natural reserves as yet unknown to them. This isn’t a quandary with a quick-fix, whatever either party believes.

But the argument doesn’t have time to gain traction, not when someone or something or some organization hacks into every feed within National City to spout the kind of propaganda that will only lead to war.

Everything spirals from there. Battle plans, military strategy, old-new tech being modified to befit the situation at hand.

A call to war, J’onn had called it, and he’d been right.

Well, Alex is more than willing to re-sign, re-enlist, repeat past battles. After all, she’s been looking for something to die for since her father was gone—presumed dead—and her little alien no longer truly needed her, and her mother seemed most pleased when she wasn’t anything to be mentioned at all. Alex has been trying to die since grad school.

Just because she’s moved past being willing to shortcut to the end by her own hand doesn’t mean she’s not still ever so eager for an end to all her inevitable failures and disappointments. Better still if she can manage to find a way to die for the cause along the way…

OooO

Checking up on Kara is the kind of built in instinct that Alex has never been able to overcome—every missed call got an answer, no matter how late; every brushed off lunch date or sisters’ night, rescheduled for a time less drunk/hungover/bloody—and she finds herself succumbing to it yet again. Following Kara into her apartment while they wait for Clark and J’onn to bring back the information they need. Like she’d thought—feared and hoped and dreaded—Kara is talking to her like nothing is wrong between them, like nothing has ever been wrong between them, like Alex is someone that Kara can _trust_. Kara shouldn’t trust her, not with anything; Alex certainly doesn’t trust herself.

And in the middle of Kara trying to process her feelings about Catco and Cat and Kal, in the middle of Alex clamping down on her jittering instincts to stay calm and composed and to just be what _Kara needs her to be_ , Kara says she wants to move to Metropolis.

The floor falls out from under Alex’s feet. The roof caves in. Skies burn and oceans boil. Her stomach drops somewhere between her knees while her heart lurches up to make its new home in the middle of her throat. It feels like all the air’s been sucked out of the room, leaving Alex gasping.

“Met—Metropolis?”

“Yeah! Think about it. National City would be safer without me around drawing a big target for Cadmus, J’onn wouldn’t have to worry about me being uncomfortable around kryptonite, and you! _You_ could do your job at the DEO without having to worry about me. Alex, if I was in Metropolis, Clark and I could protect the city and keep each other safe, and there’s still so much I want to learn from him. What’d you think?”

What does Alex think? Alex thinks the world is ending. Alex thinks that she doesn’t Clark to be there for Kara when she needs him—he never has been before, why start now—and she doesn’t trust him to keep her as safe as Alex will out in the field. Alex thinks that Kara leaving would feel like a missing limb, a missing torso, the heart cut right out of her.

Alex thinks that if Kara wants to run away from her, she has every right to, has every reason to.

Alex goes back to the freezer, pulls out the whiskey kept there for her instead of the ice cream they so often share, and she doesn’t bother with a glass. She has the self-control not to chug—the day isn’t over and there’s still a battle to be fought—but she does take a healthy pull from the bottle and she relishes in the way it burns like an old ache all the way down her throat to douse the writhing mess of guilt and self-loathing and despair roiling in her stomach.

“I, I thought it would be good for you. You wouldn’t have to take care of me anymore.” Kara sounds so small, so hurt. Fuck. Alex did that. Alex put that pain in Kara’s voice, on Kara’s face.

I always want to take care of you, Alex wants to say. I love you, Alex wants to say. I’m sorry, Alex wants to say, I’m so damn sorry.

“Do you think it’ll be good for you?” Alex asks, lowering the bottle from her mouth, but not even close to releasing it just yet; she has a feeling she’ll need another drink before this conversation is over. “Not good for National City, or J’onn, or _me_. For you.”

Kara stares at her a long moment, kicked puppy hurt and orphaned alien lost, “I just want to do the right thing.”

Alex takes another drink. Alex closes her eyes, grits her teeth, and puts the bottle back in the freezer. Running a hand through her hair, Alex breathes in deep, breathes out slowly.

“If you wanna go,” Alex has to stop, the words crowded at the back of her throat like bile. “I support you, _always_.”

“Thank you.” Kara breathes out, sounding relieved. She pulls Alex into a hug, tentative and gentle like she’s scared to hold Alex as tight as she used to. Alex hands come back around her foster sister’s back, press into her as hard as she can, and tells herself that she’s not allowed to cry over this. Not in front of Kara. Not when Kara needs this.

Kara needs Alex to let her go, for real this time.

OooO

Alex doesn’t mean to be so forceful with the screwdriver. Generally speaking, Alex tends to reserve excessive force to their captives—more specifically, those that come after Kara—but she’s frustrated. Because Kara wants to leave, and Alex should let her go but she doesn’t want to. She’s built her entire life around Kara, mostly at her mother’s insistent, never-ending demand, but also because Alex loves Kara far too much to ever let anything bad happen to the girl who had lost her entire world ever again if Alex could stop it.

“Think with less stabbing.” Winn says, and Alex knows she should. There’s more at play here than her own, horrifically fucked up, feelings. She can’t begrudge Kara the need for distance. Alex had done the unthinkable, the unforgivable. The fact that Kara is even willingly to look at Alex, let alone speak to or be around her, is a miracle. The fact that Kara wants to leave, wants to get away from her is so properly understandable that it hurts.

“Have you ever spent time inside a foster home?” Winn asks, after a few moment of drawn out brooding over her shitty feelings.

“No.”

“Well, I have, after my father went to prison.” Winn shrugs, like he doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it. “And it is nothing but being told how grateful you should be that someone is taking care of you. That’s not family. Family is not about score-keeping. Family is about showing up. So, just chill with the attitude. Cause I’m having a hard enough time getting this ready with all the trace kryptonite in the air.”

Alex bites back her immediate response that she’s not upset about score-keeping. Family _is_ about showing up, and Clark never actually _has_ , until Myriad, until the _Venture_. But he makes an appearance once and Alex is set to lose the most important person in her life.

But, it’s not about that at all, is it. Not really. Alex knows that. Kara knows that. Clark probably knows it too. This is about Kara getting away from _Alex_ , specifically. This is about Kara _needing_ to get away from Alex, specifically.

Then, slowly and then suddenly, Alex registers that last part of Winn’s little speech.  “Wait, what did you say?”

“It’s like a subatomic locker room in here.”

“Kryptonite leaves a residue?” Alex feels like the worst scientist for not putting the pieces together, for not already knowing as the pieces slowly come together in her mind. She’s a fucking idiot, and Kara deserves to leave for Metropolis where maybe her help won’t be so fucking stupid. “So, if we wanted to find out which DEO agent stole kryptonite…”

“Hey, let’s get silly. Why don’t we take an actual Geiger counter to the locker room.”

So they do. And Alex gets an answer to a question she hadn’t wanted to need to ask.

“What’re you gonna do?” Winn asks, soft and scared, and all Alex can do is begin to grin.

She can’t stop the smile that slowly twists at the corners of her lips. She can’t do anything about Kara wanting to leave, about her father being so long missing that find him is nigh an impossibility, about the terrible things she had done and let be done the moment she thought it might have been okay to. But she can do something about _this_.

OooO

McGills is shot in the same moment the blow comes from behind, at the moment of what should be her triumph, and Alex wants to know who these people are to be capable of sneaking up on _her_.

“Agent Danvers, of the DEO, how nice to meet you. I’ll tell your father you say ‘Hello’.” And doesn’t that just answer yet another question Alex doesn’t want to have to have asked? Cadmus is here, now, and.

Fuck.

“Where’s my father?!”

“You know I won’t say.” The woman is imperious and cold, a thin veneer of professionalism meticulously coated over saccharine condescension. The kind that only powerful people are capable of. Someone well up in the ranks then.

“You might as well tell me, if you’re going to kill me.” It’s supervillain catnip. Please, oh mighty evil, gloat about your brilliance and diabolical masterplan. Please, awe me with your ability to plan out every move everyone else will make, except this one right here where you think I’m beat only for me to kick your fucking ass all the way to hell. Please.

“I suggest you die remembering him as he was. It’s better that way. Unless, you’d care to join him? Cadmus welcomes any bright minds willing to help our cause.”

“My father would never collaborate with you.”

“Do you know what I see, when I look at you? An abused child. A brainwashed little girl the DEO has warped into believing that demons are angels.” The speaker circles around Alex predatorily, and Alex would lash out, would take her out, if she thought she could manage to do it completely unarmed before one of the lackeys shot her dead. “That your life should be sacrificed to them, our invaders. All I’m asking Alex is for you to think about what your life would be, if aliens had never come. What it could be, if they were no more. That’s what I’m trying to do for the world. And you could help me.”

“I’ve killed a Kryptonian before. I stabbed Astra of the House of Ze with a sword made of kryptonite. I’ve done what you wanna do, what you can’t do.” The words taste like ash in her mouth. It’s not something she has ever been proud of, not anything she would ever even think to boast about. She’d killed a being so close to immortal as to be indistinguishable from a god, yes, but the cost of doing so was yet another wound in Kara’s already too big, too shredded heart.

“I’m impressed.”

“Good. Cause I want you to know what I’m capable of when I tell you that when I find my father, I’m coming for you.”

“Well. I suppose that settles that then.” The woman, the leader, strides off with a nod to her henchmen. And, oh, how cute, they think they can take Alex. DEO trained for twelve hours a day for six months, Alex. Killed a Kryptonian with a melee weapon, Alex. Fighting them is a brief foray into amateur hour, and Alex has them on their backs in less than thirty seconds.

They recover quickly, firing potshots with all the accuracy of first-year Stormtroopers, as she runs through the warehouse. Alex takes down one, more seriously this time, when the second comes into point blank range to save his buddy. When Kara flies down through the skylight.

“You okay?” Kara looks almost frantic, almost panicked, with worry. Alex hates herself for putting that look on her face, then swallows the feeling down to play it off as casually and normally as she used to be so very capable of.

“Yeah, thanks to you.” But Alex can’t stop her hand from flying out to grasp at Kara’s shoulder, to trail down to her elbow, her wrist, to make sure she’s as okay as, logically, Alex knows she will be. Bullets have never been a threat to Kara.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything.” It sounds like an echo of a bad dream, a bad memory. Kara apologizing desperately for that night. “I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like you were less to me than Clark.”

Alex hates how easily Kara can read her, sometimes. This isn’t the crux of their problems—that’s Alex, Alex breaking the trust between them for her own selfish ends—but it still, damningly, feels so fucking good to hear.

“You are the only reason I have _ever_ felt at home on this planet.”

It’s crushing to hear that. To know, deep in her bones, that Kara will forgive her anything for that feeling. That Kara _has_ forgiven her everything for that feeling. It sucks the air out of her lungs, air that she would have used to scream, “No! I’m a monster, and I used you. I abused you. I raped you. And I don’t get to be forgiven just because I’m so good at pretending that I don’t want to do it again, have you again!”

And all she can do is play the part, keep to her role. “I just feel like I’m better when we’re together.”

That’s what Kara needs from her.

“Me too.” And, suddenly, Alex watches realization dawn on that beautiful face, in that beautiful mind. “They think we’re divided, but we’re _not_.”

“They who?” Alex is a genius by any earthly measure, but she still finds herself lagging behind her alien’s advanced brain.

“I know what to do about Metallo, both Metallos, but I need you.”

“I’m here, _always_.” Whatever Kara needs from her.

OooO

The plan is brilliant in its simplicity, and Alex finds herself, once again, berating herself for not coming up with it herself, and sooner. Such a simple solution, but she’d been too busy treading the murky waters of her own pain and anguish to give it the proper thought and people had _died_ for her inadequacy.

Again.

She takes that pain and rage out on Corbin-turned-Metallo, and relishes in fighting with Kara again. In the fight, they’re seamless, perfectly in sync, every action and counter-reaction in absolute balance. It makes her soul feel lighter, for a moment.

It’s temporary, but it’s _real_.

OooO

Saying goodbye to Clark is a victory—one that Alex is sure she hasn’t earned—and a loss. Because, yes, Clark is doing what he’s always done, leaving Kara behind, but, more importantly, Kara isn’t following even though she could. And Kara maybe should, should step away from Alex and what has transpired between them and the way they can’t talk about it, but she isn’t. And, possibly perversely, Alex is happy about that.

She doesn’t want to be. She doesn’t want anything in the entire multiverse except for Kara’s real and honest happiness. But she is, and she can’t shake this feeling any more than she could the deep-seeded love she’s harbored for her foster sister for over a decade.


	3. When You Look at Yourself (Afraid of What You Might Become)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "When you close your eyes, what do you see? Do you hold the light, or is darkness underneath? In your hands is a touch that can heal, but in those same hands is the power to kill. You can’t take back the damage you’ve done. You can hide, but you can’t run." ~~ Sam Tinnesz, "Man or a Monster"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The hardest part of writing this installment is realizing how little interaction Kara and Alex actually get to have in Season 2. Which is part of why this took so long to get out. I'm sorry about that.

The Kryptonian wakes up and pandemonium breaks out. He sends Kara flying through the double-plated, triple-reinforced bullet-proof glass walls of the observation room and crashing down into the central control room.

Logically, rationally, Alex knows that he’s probably terrified and lashing out and that unleashing a TAC-team on him will make things worse. But, also, fuck logic and reason, he just threw Kara through glass and down three stories, so.

“Freeze!” The rocket launcher over her shoulder, admittedly, _might_ be considered overkill. But, once again, _he attacked Kara_. Besides, it’s not like a measly rocket launcher is going to actually hurt a Kryptonian. Not on this planet.

He jumps out the window, because who wouldn’t?  Fucking hell.

OooO

There’s some idiot local cop mucking about her crime scene, and Alex is _not_ well pleased. She does not have time for this bullshit. Jockeying over jurisdiction is a waste of time with a rogue Kryptonian on the loose, but she’ll be damned before she lets some flat-foot fuck up her investigation.

When Detective Maggie Sawyer, NCPD, Science Division glares up at her, Alex notices—distantly, abstractly, distractedly—that she is annoyingly _pretty_ and, twice as annoyingly, _sharp_. She calls Johnson for fucking up the evidence, and all Alex can do is step more firmly into the detective’s personal space. It’s a textbook intimidation tactic, and the look in Sawyer’s eyes tell Alex that she knows it, too. It doesn’t matter though.

“Your jurisdiction ends where I _say_ it does.” Pretty and sharp, she may be, but Alex still doesn’t have time for this. And Detective Maggie Sawyer may be good at her job—is probably excellent at it, from what Alex has seen in the last few minutes—but that doesn’t make her DEO qualified, doesn’t make her someone they can trust, doesn’t make her someone on this case.

“See you around, Danvers.”

Somehow, it sounds like a threat.

Somehow, it feels like an invitation.

OooO

The warehouse is devoid of aliens, but it isn’t empty. That damned detective is present and accounted for—and how the _fuck_ did she find this warehouse before her team?—all dimpled smirks and rolling eyes and knowing far more than Alex is comfortable having a civilian whose last name isn’t Danvers knowing about a top-secret paramilitary government agency.

Alex couldn’t say what on Earth possesses her to do it, what she might be thinking, but she finds herself giving Sawyer her cell number. Actually, yeah, no, she knows exactly why she gave Sawyer her number. It’s because it’s blatantly obvious that Sawyer isn’t going to back off this case, even though it’s _Alex’s_ and not _hers_ , and Alex doesn’t really want to see her in a starring role at a different crime scene. A starring role as the victim.

And—Alex is trying to be more honest with herself, is trying to hope that it will make it easier for her to stop herself from crossing any more lines that can’t be uncrossed—Detective Maggie Sawyer, NCPD, is hot.

Alex cut off her “dating” life after her downward tailspin in college, after J’onn and the DEO saved her from herself, but she can think of a worse ending to her night or week than having some marginally satisfying angry-sex with the too pretty, too smart for her own good, too wrapped up in Alex’s case for Alex’s good, detective. She’s pretty sure she’s caught Sawyer checking her out at least twice, so. The option might be there.

The option might be something Alex should take, if it’s there, because Alex can still feel the echo of Kara’s touch in ways she was never supposed to know and she can still hear the sounds Kara had made that night and she sees the way Kara had looked, naked and hungry and _there_ , when she closes her eyes and tries to sleep.

Trying to fuck Kara out of her system through other people has never worked, but Alex is willing to give the old college try at least one more go.

OooO

“I know what you’re going to say; I should have waited for you.” Alex tries to stop Kara before she can get going, but Kara’s having exactly none of it. Alex is completely unsurprised.

“No. I was going to say ‘you should have waited for me, _dummy’_! What if he’d actually been there? What would you have done?”

“My job.”

“Make smarter choices next time.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Alex mutters, and it sounds about as bitter as she feels. She’s done this for years, years before Kara put on that suit. She’s capable of doing this with National City’s favorite alien, even if she never wants to _have_ to. And, godsdammit, Kara needs to stop trying to protect her. Alex doesn’t need it, doesn’t want it, doesn’t _deserve_ it.

The ringing of her phone is a distraction from a further tailspin of terrible thoughts about what she’s done and who she is and what she’s made of Kara and of her and Kara, or their relationship still fragile and cracked and fragmenting every second of every day even when it doesn’t look like anything is changed or damaged.

The invitation to look further into the detective horning in on her case gives her something to do other and sit around waiting for someone else to find more, better information.

OooO

Detective Sawyer bringing her to a bar isn’t unexpected, Alex had kind of been hoping she would, but nothing about the invitation that had summoned Alex here had sounded like a come on. Then Alex realizes exactly what kind of dive bar she’s in, and it all makes sense.

She’s stuck between her agent training to be constantly aware of alien presences, and the intrinsic threat they pose in her line of work, and her scientific curiosity at watching all these xeno-forms in as close to their natural habitat she’ll ever see. She has a lot of samples, a lot of tests she can run on genetic make-ups and biological needs and imperatives, but the aliens she comes into contact with are most often the hostile and/or unconscious kind. And watching them pace in their cages is something that only entertains rookies, and, even then, usually only for the first few weeks when the idea of aliens is still so new and exciting that just seeing one—even one that isn’t _doing_ anything—is exciting purely because it’s _an alien_.

But these aliens aren’t confined to cages just barely large enough to house them, and they aren’t actively trying to maim and murder her or anyone else. They’re relaxed, completely; their less—more?—than human attributes on full display as they drink, as they talk, as they play. Just like people.

It shouldn’t be such a shock. J’onn is an alien who has never wanted to hurt anyone. Kara is an alien who doesn’t want to hurt anyone. But J’onn wears Hank Henshaw’s face as if it’s truly his own, and Alex only sees the Martian Manhunter when things are _bad_ , when lives are on the line, when the people she loves are in danger too great for humanity to mask. And Kara looks human, acts mostly human, _feels_ human.

Alex doesn’t know how to look at them and see _alien_. They just look like Kara and J’onn. They just look like people she loves.

The waitress drops their beers off with some unwarranted snark towards Maggie, and Alex pings her as Roltikkon immediately. Her excitement gets the better of her for a few moments, and then Sawyer drops the information that the alien is her ex, that she dates women and aliens and alien women. And, oh.

Part of Alex wants to say “Well, shit, Sawyer, me too.”

Only, less with the dating and more with the screwing until someone blacks out. Only, less with the alien _s_ and more with the _alien_ , singular. Only, just once. Only, she wasn’t supposed to do that. Only, it was wrong.

Alex tells the part of her that wants to speak to shut the fuck up.

She’s not here to make friends and bond over living out a fucking Katy Perry song; there’s work to be done.

OooO

They get the Daxamite, lock him in a cell and throw away the key. Then they go to the president’s speech. Kara is smiling so brightly as to be blinding; Alex is trying to pretend that she’s worthy of witnessing that smile.

And then it all goes up in flames. Literally.

Fucking _hell_.

Sawyer’s there, Sawyer’s doing her job. Alex is doing her job, too, which is how she finds herself thrown into a godsdamned fountain while the alien absconds with the detective Alex is still tentatively planning on fucking the brains out of in the near future. Honestly, that’s just _rude_.

The argument could be made that Alex is, perhaps, a little overzealous in her interrogation of the alien back at the bar. Alex doesn’t care. She’s full of rage, and self-loathing, and complete, unmitigated disgust with herself. _This_ is the outlet that doesn’t leave Kara bereft.

And, fuck everything, she actually likes Sawyer, stupid knowing smirks and damnable dimples and all. She’s not willing to let Sawyer die just because some jackass wants to play at being a tough guy.

It feels good. Smashing his face against the bar, pinning him beneath the bar stool, holding him down while he struggles against her and she spits out a speech about Sawyer. She can still do this. She’s good at this. Even if it’s not what she’s supposed to be good at—taking care of Kara, being a doctor, doing no harm, protecting Kara—at least it’s something.

She’s good at this. She’s a fighter and a killer and worse things besides. Alex is the kind of thing monsters have nightmares about, and she will beat and torture and kill this being to get what she wants. Because she can, because she needs to. She’s got a badge, a gun, and a bone to pick. No one here is going to stop her until she knows what she needs to.  

This is what she’s good at, and it’s horrifying—in a distant, abstract way because she knows it should be horrifying even if it just feels good—but at least it’s something she can use. It’s a terrible, terrible thing to be good at, to feel good about, but she can use it for the right reasons. She can use it to save people.

So she will.

When the bartender gives up the Inferian’s location, Alex doesn’t bother calling in any more backup than what she needs. She doesn’t want to waste the DEO’s time if it’s a bust, and she has no doubt that between Kara and her, they won’t need a battalion of DEO soldiers for this takedown. Not when Kara feels guilty about capturing the wrong alien. Not when Alex is riding on a wave of rage at someone else, for once, and eager to keep it at its crest.

They kick the alien’s ass. Sawyer swings the finishing blow and declares, with full dimples and sparkling eyes, “You guys are _fun_.”

And, yeah. Yeah, Alex is definitely going to sleep with Maggie Sawyer.

OooO

Alex doesn’t sleep with Maggie Sawyer.

Sawyer had a date she didn’t want to be late for and booked it while Alex was trying to subtly feel out how Sawyer might feel about getting naked with her. Which is. Unfortunate.

Arguably, Alex could go out and find someone else. She’s not the twenty-something party girl she used to be, but she knows that she’s still hot enough to get a girl to go home with her if she puts in a little effort. She could go out, find some girl she doesn’t know and will never see again, and replace the memory of Kara’s hands on her with someone with a blurry face and a forgotten name.

But Alex doesn’t want to go out, she doesn’t want to put in the effort. She’s had a long day—protecting the president, tracking down rogue Daxamites, pulling Sawyer’s ass out of the fire—and she’s tired. She doesn’t want to go home and get dressed up to go out, doesn’t want to flirt and make small talk and pretend that she cares about anything other than having a warm body moving against her when she goes home.

So Alex doesn’t. She goes home, and she takes a long, hot shower—careful to avoid any mirrors; she hasn’t been able to look at herself since, well, since, and today isn’t the day she thinks she’ll be able to stomach the sight—and she puts on her second comfiest pajamas. The first comfiest is stashed at the bottom of her laundry basket, and she’s hiding from them—a pair of Kara’s UNC sweat pants and Kara’s Catco hoodie—like she can pretend that she could hide from her shame as easily as her reflection.

Then she drinks half a bottle of Jack and crawls into bed.


End file.
